Community confronts gang issue after teen's slaying

Saturday

Feb 25, 2012 at 10:49 PM

Families, teens deny the groups are anything more than clusters of neighborhood friends.

Eric HeisigStaff Writer

Damien Wagner's nickname is “Super.” It stems from when he was a boy and tried repeatedly to fly like his favorite superhero.“He used to run out of the house like Superman,” said his mother, 43-year-old Jennifer Wagner.Those care-free days are long gone for both mother and son.Wagner, 18, is behind bars. He is one of six teenagers arrested in January and charged with engaging in gang activity that police say resulted in a Thibodaux teen's death. The gang, according to police, is known as Young Niggas in Charge and has roots in the Midland neighborhood of Thibodaux.Wagner was among the teens who went to Raceland on Jan. 2 in search of a rival group they were feuding with on Facebook, Lafourche sheriff's deputies said. The boys allegedly terrorized several people. One of them, 21-year-old Byron Thomas, shot at the group. A bullet struck Jamonta “Monta” Miles, 15, in the head and killed him, police said. Ijah Baptiste, 17, was shot in the elbow. Byron Thomas has not been arrested. On Thursday, a grand jury determined that investigators do not have enough evidence to prosecute him. Authorities say Thomas acted in self-defense.In the absence of new evidence, no one will be held accountable for the shooting, police said.But Wagner, Baptiste and the other teens who accompanied them that night — Damian Dyer, 18, Jeremy Carcisse, 18, Donvon McPherson, 18, and Devonte Robertson, 17 — are each accused of being in a gang.Carcisse, Wagner and Dyer remain behind bars. The others are free on bail.The violent death of someone so young shocked some in the community, but so too did news that gangs exist in Thibodaux. The families of the arrested teens were among those who found the news surprising.Authorities say that while these groups are not on par with big-city gangs, they do exist and occasionally engage in violence.Lafourche District Attorney Cam Morvant II said Monta's death prompted his office to compare notes with other local law enforcement and help shed light on what is a present but long-ignored problem.

According to state law, a gang is a group of three or more people with a common name, identifying sign or symbol that engages in a pattern of criminal activity.In rural areas such as Terrebonne and Lafourche, the most common type of gang activity involves teens and young adults, police in both parishes say. Members are typically boys from the same neighborhood who turn to crime out of boredom.The same is true in other parts of the country, said Ralph Weisheit, a criminal-justice professor at Illinois State University.“They are kids who model themselves after a large urban gang,” Weisheit said. “They take on the signs and colors to feel like they are important and make a big difference.”The proliferation of Facebook and other social-media websites made feuding with rival groups easier, he said. Thanks to technology, harsh words can be exchanged online, and the bad feelings can grow.“It's very common in small towns for young people to have a rivalry nearby, like fights at basketball games,” Weisheit said. “In the old days, you kept them physically apart, like having police at basketball games.”

In Terrebonne and Lafourche, the groups have names like The Dulac Posse, The Marydale Babies and The Upper Bayou Boys.Police long knew these groups existed, but they stopped short of calling them gangs, said Mike Garner, a Terrebonne Narcotics Task Force agent. In fact, this is the first time in recent memory that the gang-activity charge has been used in either Terrebonne or Lafourche.“This is a group of kids bound by growing up together,” Garner said.Police say assault and battery are the most common crime committed by such groups. Occasionally, serious violence or drug activity is linked to gang activity.For example, several people arrested during an August 2009 drug bust in Terrebonne are believed to be members of the Upper Bayou Boys. And an October 2006 stabbing at the Evergreen Lions Club in Houma was allegedly the result of gang-related fighting.In Lafourche, Morvant says it was Monta's death that prompted a closer examination of the issue.It might be the first time the gang-activity charge has been levied during his administration, but Morvant says he won't hesitate to apply it again if necessary.“If we find that there is a structure (in a group), we are going to come down hard on them,” Morvant said.Locally, such groups usually fall apart as their members mature.“They see there are repercussions,” Garner said. “A lot decide that ‘I don't want to be part of it.' But it varies per individual.”Terrebonne sheriff's Maj. Darryl Stewart, head of Terrebonne's task force, also said the small-town atmosphere helps to end some teens' involvement. Someone winds up telling a parent what's going on, he explained, and repercussions result.

Thibodaux Police officer Joseph Perio has been tasked with patrolling Midland, a neighborhood that includes public-housing units.It's a job he's done via 12-hour shifts over the past four years. He sometimes does it from behind the wheel of his police cruiser, other times by walking through the neighborhood and talking with those he is assigned to protect.“If you respect them, they respect you,” Perio said.Not all six of the arrested gang members live in Midland, but all have relatives who do, police said. Perio pointed out a member to a reporter and photographer who tagged along for a routine January shift, adding that they are made easier to spot because of the red clothes they wear.Perio said he watches for telling body language or movements to know when trouble is brewing. If a large group of teenagers move too quickly to a spot out of police view, “something is about to happen,” he said.And that's why it's important to build trust with residents, Perio said, so they are comfortable divulging information that can lead to an arrest.Often, he said, the same teens who “are supposed to be in a gang and act hard. But once they get in front of their parents, they're crying.”

Damien Wagner is not a gang member, his family insists.He's just a typical teenager who liked to hang out with other boys from the neighborhood. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, they say, and as a result now has to deal with the trauma of watching his friend die.Wagner was sitting next to Monta in the car the teens took to Raceland, his family said. Monta's head fell into Wagner's lap after the shots were fired.“He said ‘Son, you can get up,' ” Jennifer Wagner said. But Monta didn't get up, she said, explaining that it was her boy who told police “son dead.”Wagner remains in the Concordia Parish jail, a facility more than a 150 miles away from Terrebonne and Lafourche. Jennifer Wagner said she has only seen her son a handful of times since his arrest, mostly because the distance is so great.Janet Johnson, Wagner's 60-year-old grandmother, said Wagner told the family that the memory of Monta's lifeless body continues to haunt him.Amanda Miles, Monta's mother, also denies that her son was in a gang.“I'm not going to say he's a scary person, but if you pick a fight with him, he should fight back,” Johnson said.Johnson said she knew about the group because the boys were always together. They were friends, she insists, not a gang. Police treatment of the boys, she insists, made a bad situation worse. The close-knit group was jailed when their friend was laid to rest, said Jennifer Wagner.“They missed his funeral,” she said.

Staff Writer Eric Heisig can be reached at 857-2202 or eric.heisig@houmatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter @TerrebonneCrime.